A Southern Belle's Rant... to Anonymous!

I've been agonizing over an email that I received this morning... from "Anonymous" no less!!! I'm compiling several blog posts that I have written on Southern Cooking and Soul Food. They all contain information on the history of Southern Cooking and Foods. The links are at the bottom of this post. That being said...

I am a Southern Belle with very strong ties to my Southern Roots. My Family History and Southern Heritage are a great source of pride for me. Southern Style Cuisine gets a bad rep from time to time... with Fat, Butter and Sugar being criticized at every turn. That's fine with me. You eat what you want, or don't eat what you don't want. Like it or don't like it. Love it or hate it... it's your call.

So, who peed in my corn flakes this morning??? "Anonymous", that's who. Someone not brave enough to leave their name... on my blog post about my baby brother's famous pizza... and I quote!!!

"Pizza is not southern but it shares a few major characteristics of typical southern fare: yummy but heart attack inducing. I feel fat after just looking at the pics."

#1... Knocking my baby brother's pizza is a BIG no no! If my Mama were still alive, she would find you Anonymous! BTW... I have the same knee-jerk reaction, since I took care of him after she died.

#2... If I told my baby brother that someone left a note on his lit'l Sis' blog insinuating that our food isn't southern, he'd be in his pick-up blaring Hank Jr's "Country Boy Can Survive!" demanding, "Take it back!"
(at the least... that's what he'd do.)

#3... My daughter-in-law, that had her wedding portraits taken in her breathtaking wedding gown, camo hat and rifle... would demand, "Take it Back!"

#4... My Mama was Southern. My Daddy is Southern. My Grandparents were Southern. My son is Southern. I am Southern. My kitchen is Southern. The food that comes out of my kitchen is Southern. Getting the picture?

My Grandmama Bradham, My Mama,

Me and My Son! Four generations of Southerners!

#5... I am NOT saying that a Southerner created the pizza. If you are a Northerner, and think New Yorkers created the pizza... NOPE. If you think that the Italians created the pizza, NOPE, wrong again. The Italians are the first recorded to have used the WORD "pizza". Foods similar to pizza have been prepared since the neolithic age also know as the Stone Age, beginning about 10,200 BC. Records of people adding other ingredients to bread to make it more flavorful can be found throughout ancient history. For more info on the history of the pizza... Click Here!

For more (calm and rational) posts on Southern Food and History choose any of the links below! :-)

My Mama... The original Southern Belle... no emails please!!!
http://lynn-southernwithatwist.blogspot.com/2012/04/no-one-who-cooks-cooks-alone-even-at.html

What is Real Southern Food?
http://lynn-southernwithatwist.blogspot.com/2010/07/real-southern-cooking.html

Family Reunion Picnic on the 4th of July
http://lynn-southernwithatwist.blogspot.com/2012/06/4th-of-july-at-cabin.html

Whole Hog Southern BBQ
http://lynn-southernwithatwist.blogspot.com/2011/01/southern-whole-hog-bbq.html

Collard Greens
http://lynn-southernwithatwist.blogspot.com/2011/12/southern-collard-greens-and-ham-hock.html

Soul Food History
http://lynn-southernwithatwist.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-is-soul-food.html


More Soul Food
http://lynn-southernwithatwist.blogspot.com/2011/05/healthy-soul-food.html

South Carolina Hash and Rice

When I was growning up we had hog head hash. It is made with the head, heart, and the liver... no part of the hog was wasted. Now, I use Boston Butts. (which is a cut of pork that comes from the upper part of the shoulder from the front leg and may contain the blade bone)

In pre-revolutionary New England and into the American Revolutionary War, some pork cuts (not those highly valued, or "high on the hog," like loin and ham) were packed into casks or barrels (also known as "butts") for storage and shipment. The way the hog shoulder was cut in the Boston area became known in other regions as "Boston butt".

3lbs pork butt*

1/2lb liver, cooked (optional)

1lb peeled potatoes

1 onion

juice from cooking the pork

and a great BBQ sauce (like "Daddy's Bar-B-Que Sauce)

Bake pork (seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder), covered until it falls apart. (about 3-4 hours at 350 degrees) Save the renderings/broth. In a pot, boil your potatoes and a finely minced onion seasoned with salt. Run meat (fat and all), liver, potato and onion mixture through a meat grinder. (Or grind in food chopper or processor) Place ground mixture back in the broth, add BBQ sauce to consistence of a very thick gravy. Let simmer at a low temp for another hour or two. Serve over white rice.

* Reserve or cook an extra couple of pounds of meat to shred and add sauce to for the BBQ plate or for sandwiches.

If you don't have the sauce or don't know how much seasoning, try this recipe for making it in the crockpot... what can be easier? I still prefer to grind the meat and not chop to get a smoother texture, but that's just me!

CrockPot Hash

5 to 6 lbs Boston butt roasts
1lb. liver*
3 large baking potatoes, peeled and diced
3 medium onions, peeled and diced

Step 1: Set a 5 quart crock pot on high. Rub both roasts and Liver with salt and cracked pepper, then place in the crock pot. Add the diced potatoes and onions, and then fill the pot with hot water or stock and cover. Let it cook 6 to 7 hours until the meat falls apart. Keep check on the water level.

Step 2: Remove the meat from the pot and pull apart to let cool. Next remove the bone, fat, and connective tissue. Pull the meat apart in small pieces and then give it a light chop. Break up the potatoes and onions in the pot with a potato masher. Return the meat to the pot. Add the butter and reduce heat to the lowest setting. Let it cook another hour or until it is the consistency you like.

Step 3: Add your seasonings one at a time and taste as you go. Add a little BBQ sauce for a kick or extra hot sauce.

Step 4: Serve over your choice of white rice pour sauce over the rice and hash.

*Substitute chicken liver if you need to. Pork can be hard to find.

 Pull (or shred) the rest of the pork...

... and add Daddy's Bar-B-Que Sauce!

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers." ~ Laurie Colwin

If I had a dime for every time someone said, “I use the same recipe Judy did and it never comes out the same”...  I watched Mama make biscuits a hundred times and I would ask her to just write it down. She used to ask me how was she supposed to write down something she “just did”? “Just Watch," she would say. I watched as she added flour to Grandmama Bradham’s “biscuit bowl”(an old aluminum bowl that looked like Charlie got after it with a hammer). She made a “well” in the center of the flour, poured in some milk and then added a generous hand-full of shortening. She said that it was the hand-mixing that made them taste so good. But somehow that pile of goo turned into some of the most wonderful tastes, smells, and memories that I could ever have imagined. She gently patted out each one with her hands and laid her fingers across each one as her put it on the cookie sheet, leaving behind the ridges on top. 

I remember opening the oven and seeing these golden brown, flat, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth biscuits that smelled so good that you could hear the drool sizzle as it hit the oven door! We had to flip the biscuit over and spread jelly on the bottom because you could not cut the biscuit without it crumbling to pieces. Daddy used to joke and say they were “crummy.” I can still see him sitting there after supper with the handle of his spoon making a “well” in a biscuit and pouring syrup inside until it ran over spilling on the plate. (That is, if we were out of Aunt Dot’s Fig Preserves.)

I remember growing up “in the kitchen.” When someone was down, you cook. When someone was celebrating, you cook. When someone had a death in the family, you cook. It wasn’t so much the food that Mama cooked that made it taste so good...(and here’s the secret) it was the love Mama added that made it all so special. I never realized just how much Mama did for so many people until she was gone and the stories started coming to me from everyone she touched in her life. I have boxes of cards, cut-outs from magazines, and hand-written copies of dozens and dozens of recipes Mama collected over the years. She wrote notes on them. She wrote notes in cookbooks she gave to me. She also kept cards as reminders of what people liked so she could make special things for them again when they were down, or “up.” She kept 3X5 cards recording special dinners.

For example:


Gary & Kathy Taylor - Mr & Mrs Thames June 1970
Turkey & Gravy
Dressing
Rice (cream and sugar for Gary’s rice)
Biscuits
Peas
Sweet Potato Imperial
Corn Pie
Emerald Salad (Gary’s favorite)
Red Velvet Cake

If someone asked Mama to make “that chicken” she made last time, she could look it up.... She also wrote notes like: (.... doesn’t like...) and (.....s are ....’s favorite) or (...... is allergic to .....)

All these things made you feel like you were the center of every meal and the meal was always unforgettable.

It was a time... "sometime before flirting became extinct, when letter writing was an art, stationary was engraved, and dinner was an event." Dash Goff, the writer to Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women

What is Soul Food?

"Soul Food"
The Southern-style cooking of Black Americans, labeled as “Soul Food” in the ‘70s, has its roots in American slavery. Most African slaves came from the countries along the coast of West Africa and were taken to North America, South America and the South Sea Islands. They arrived in America stripped of everything but their memories.

Meals put together by the women were often made from food the slave owners had thrown away—pig feet, ham hocks, and intestines (chit’lins). Wild greens, fruits, wild game and produce from small gardens were also used in meals. Using their cooking methods from Africa, the women put together savory dishes, which today are still traditional foods for many African-American families.

Slaves used large amounts of fat, salt and sugar to season their food because it was available. Salt was used as a preservative since they had no refrigeration. Unlike us today, slaves spent long hours in the hot sun working hard and burning off the calories of the foods they ate. Our lives have changed since then. While Soul Food is nutritious, it is often heavy in salt and fat. Too much fat and salt in meals can increase the risk of heart disease and cancer. The challenge is to keep the traditional flavor and “soul” of the meal while reducing the fat and salt.

Until recently African-American recipes, like folktales, were handed down by word of mouth. Traditional cooks did not use measuring cups, measuring spoons, timers or written recipes. They cooked by using their senses, using a pinch of this and a dash of that. They knew food was finished cooking by how it sounded or how it looked. Fried chicken was turned based on the sound it made in the frying pan and corn bread was cooked until golden brown.

African-American cooking varies from state to state depending on the African nation from which their ancestors came and the region of the US they settled. After the Civil War, freed slaves migrated to the north bringing their traditional cooking with them. Meals had ingredients based on the local availability of food as well as some ingredients that came from other cultures.

Savory Triple Corn Grits

2 large ears fresh sweet corn , kernels scraped
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 large yellow onion , diced
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 cloves garlic , minced
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup stone-ground grits
Freshly ground white pepper

Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Turn off heat, add corn kernels, and let sit for 1 minute. Drain and set aside.

In a medium sauté pan over medium heat, warm the oil; add onion, cumin, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook until softened, about 2 minutes more. Set aside half of onion mixture in a small bowl. Add reserved corn to pan and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Set aside.

In a bowl, mix cornmeal and grits well. In a medium saucepan, combine 3 cups water and 1/2 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil. Slowly whisk in cornmeal and grits until no lumps remain, return to a boil, then quickly reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent grits from sticking to bottom of pan, until grits have absorbed most of the liquid and are thickening, about 3 minutes. Stir in 1 cup water and simmer 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Stir in corn-onion mixture. Cover and simmer, stirring frequently, until grits are soft and fluffy, about 30 minutes.
Season with salt and white pepper to taste. Garnish with onion mixture.


Southern Collard Greens and Ham Hock


Traditionally wild greens or greens from small gardens were seasoned with smoked meat such as ham hocks, fatback or a ham bone. Sometimes greens and vegetables with different flavors were mixed. Pot likker, the highly seasoned liquid that remains after greens are cooked, is rich in vitamins and minerals. When greens were served, the leftover pot likker and cornbread were often served the next day.

In slave kitchens, meat was often scarce. In the song “Ham Bone”. . .
"Ham bone, ham bone, where you been?
Around the world and back again”

. . .refers to the practice of sharing a ham bone to season greens. The ham bone was shared with different slave families and then returned to the owner. Even today many African American cooks would not think of cooking greens without ham hocks or fatback, but smoked turkey parts can be substituted producing the same flavor with less salt and fat.

This recipe is for the beginner that may have never cooked or even eaten collard greens. It is a basic southern soul food method of cooking collard greens.

Ingredients:
4 pounds collard greens
2 ham hocks
1 teaspoon sugar
1 hot pepper pod
1 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
water

Cookware and Utensils:
1 Dutch Oven
1 cutting board
1 sharp knife

Recipe Instructions:
As always the key to great cooking is to be prepared and use quality ingredients.

Selection of collard greens is very important. Go to your local grocery store or farmer's market and select 5 pounds of young leafy collard greens. You will select more than the recipe calls for because some leaves will be unusable and the large stems will be cut off and discarded. Also, remember that the greens shrink at least by half in the cooking process. So it's more than you think.

Start off by cooking your ham hocks. You can find ham hocks in most grocery stores near the ham section in the meat department. If you don't see them, ring for the meat dept and ask for them. Place ham hocks in a Dutch oven. Add water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover meat and simmer until tender. This should take about 1 hour. Don't allow the water to cook out.

While the ham hocks are cooking, go ahead and prepare your greens for cooking. Rinse your greens several times under cold water to remove dirt or sand. After greens are clean, stack several leaves on top of each other. Using a cutting board and knife, roll the leaves together and cut leaves into 1 inch thick strips.

When your ham hocks become tender go ahead and add more water, the collards, sugar, hot peppers and garlic powder to the Dutch oven. Add greens to the pot until the pot is full. Most likely all of the greens will not fit. Just allow the greens to cook down and continue adding until all of your greens fit in the Dutch oven. Cover greens and continue to simmer for about 1 hour, until greens are tender. Stir your greens often and keep sufficient water level so all the collards simmer. About halfway through cooking, add salt and pepper to taste.